This past Friday, student Mariah and I worked on basing the floor for “Putnam County.” We got much further than I expected, considering we had only an hour and a half. This afternoon, I expect to begin doing some lining, though I need to leave early to hit the trophy stores before they all close. . . .
Friday afternoon was spent finishing up “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” We opened on Saturday and sent it off on the road. Here are some pics from that final afternoon in the shop.
Students adding leaves to the background flats:
Painting the trees. The Fall (non-spooky side is facing us):
Touching up the black on the side flat trees:
Final painting of the stools:
TD Ruth working with TA Nathan on some sign hanging technology:
Waiting for the evening’s tech rehearsal to begin. The trees on stage, Fall side out:
And then student stage manager Alex kindly flipped them to spooky side out so I could get a shot of that:
We are heading into tech for “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and we are behind, but catching up. The set is designed by student Lilliana Gonzalez. I’m doing the lighting design this time around.
Here are the tree-trunk stools, ready to get painted:
Intro to Theatre students applying gaff tape over the gap between the two halves of the trees:
Making headway on the painting of the backing flats:
These half trees are done (except for painting the framing black). They get attached to the side masking flats to frame the playing space.
The trees on stage, as we get ready for rehearsal:
Light board operator Stephanie doing some programming at the tech table:
The view over the monitors during the run:
And then coming in bright and early this morning to continue texturing the trees with Lilliana, and putting lots of fans on them in the hope that they will be dry by tonight.
It’s hang and focus week on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Student ME Dan is leading crews of the Intro to Theatre students on getting the show hung and circuited. A view from the booth:
Down on the deck, working on the 1A Electric:
Looking up into the Beams:
In the shop, work on the trees and props continues.
And we forge ahead with the painting of the backing flats:
We’re in the last days of tech week, and finally catching up.
Here’s a view over the light board op and student lighting designer Quinn a few nights ago at one of the first techs:
And the view down the tech table, starting with student stage manager Allison and heading down through sound and projections.
A couple of finished prop shots. Nicky Paradise’s cardboard piano:
And Grover’s Masai based mask:
And finally, even though I hate the idea of the magic theatre elves, since we’re taking photos tonight, and our TD, Ruth, will be working on getting the projector permanently hung (ah, projections — there’s always misadventure where they’re involved), I came in in the morning to get the painting finished and hang more clocks. More clocks will go up Monday afternoon, but I wanted the set to look at least mostly finished so students can have photos for their portfolios and KCACTF presentations.
It’s been a bit hectic this past week, but here are some photos of our progress on “On the Verge.”
First, here’s Ruth, our new tech director, sorting through some cut luaun:
TA Dan, working on a flat frame:
TA Alex working with an Intro student on some platforming:
TA (and student lighting designer Quinn) working with an Intro student on the portal:
TA Bruce working with an Intro student on platforming, with TD Ruth sharpening a pencil there in the background:
A shot from the circuiting call:
Earlier last week as platforming started to go into place:
My work on the fake cardboard piano for Nicky’s Bar and Grill:
A coat of primer on the platforming:
TD Ruth explains something to TA Bruce as the projection portal goes up:
And tiny triumphas as my vintage Chiclets box dries in my office:
I never did get a picture of the finished “The Tangled Skirt” up last week, and now it’s closed and we’re in the middle of getting “Yankee Tavern” built. So here are two photos from “The Tangled Skirt’s” final dress rehearsal. First, the set in preset:
And then with actors Morgan Gorman and Ben Treinen on stage:
It’s a smaller shop crew during the summer, but even so, things are going swiftly, and today I painted a lot of walls and made a dent on the floor. The floor, with it’s base linear scumble:
And then with the first graining:
In the shop, TD Steve Chene and Mason work on the bar and the door:
And Emily reestablishes the mortar lines on our brick walls:
Summeround is in full gear now, and the shop is working on the set for the first offering, “The Tangled Skirt.”
I spent some time this morning working on the bus station floor:
While students worked on flats in the shop:
Allison traced, cut, and primed our greyhounds:
And I finished the morning by finishing paint work on a few walls:
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” goes into tech next week, so here are some pictures of where we are at the moment. First, here’s student stage manager Emily posting new things on the callboard:
We were trying out a new method of building the slopes with celotex, but it was taking too long and was too fiddly, so we’ve reverted to styrofoam. Here we have Alex, Javona, and Christina cutting out shapes:
Props manager Allison works on the wooden sword:
The grid is half hung at this point, so this afternoon the light hang will continue:
My project is to finish painting the stone facing — we’re doing it on strips of linoleum to better accommodate the curved platform edges:
Also did some more work on “On the Verge.” Here’s the model with a new header and added clocks:
Finally, this slice of tree is from one of the sugar maples that used to stand across the street from the Center for the Arts. It and it’s twin were cut down this Fall so a developer could build some truly nondescript student apartments. One of the art profs claimed this chunk and plans to sand it down and make a timeline of it. They guess the trees were at least two hundred years old.
This past weekend we had tech! Sunday was first Dress, and tonight, Monday night, is final Dress. Here are some photos from Friday afternoon through the weekend.
The pie shop second act counter, with cask:
Students installing the pie shop shelves:
Some of the posters that will appear all over the stage:
TA Joe leading students in raising Pirelli’s wagon after attaching the flat to the platforming:
Getting reading to practice the trap door business:
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ASMs under the platforming, waiting to catch actors as they come down the slide (engineered by TD Steve Chene). Safe as possible, and works like a charm!
Stage manager Allison, calling the show during one of the runs this weekend:
And a shot of the stage as Toby begins to play barker:
My personal moment of triumph was discovering that I could use sea sponges instead of springs to allow the harmonium pedals to be pumped after I detached them from the bellows! Yay, low tech!